welcome to vols: Tennessee vols Lands Promising Iowa State Linebacker rejected Alabama and…….
Breaking see news: Tennessee vols Lands Promising Iowa State Linebacker rejected Alabama and Auburn welcome to vols
Tennessee won 10 games for just the second time since 2007 while beating top rivals Florida and Alabama.
Add in an emotional road win against Oklahoma — which was head coach Josh Heupel’s first game back in Norman since he was fired by his alma mater a decade ago — and it’s hard not to be thrilled with the way the season went for the Vols if you’re a Tennessee fan.
Oh, and lest we forget, the Volunteers reached the 12-team College Football Playoff in 2024. That’s something that programs like Alabama, Florida, LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Texas A&M can’t claim.
It wasn’t a perfect season for Tennessee, but it was a hell of a lot better than those 5-7 seasons that were the norm under Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt
While the season was special for the Vols, it could have been even better if the College Football Playoff hadn’t used one of the worst seeding systems in sports history.
Over the last month of the season, the College Football Playoff committee was tasked with ranking the top 25 teams.
The committee’s final rankings had Tennessee at No. 7.
But because of automatic byes for the top four ranked conference champions, the Vols were the No. 9 seed in the tournament (they were jumped by Boise State and Arizona State).
As a result, Tennessee was forced to play in what was arguably the toughest matchup in the entire tournament — a road game against Ohio State.
The Buckeyes had a couple of missteps in the regular season, but they’re likely the most talented team in the nation. And they played like it against Tennessee in Columbus in a first round playoff matchup that Ohio State won by 25 points. OSU continued their dominance with a 41-21 win against Oregon in the Rose Bowl in the quarterfinals.
Ohio State is now the favorite to win it all. And if they continue to play like they did against Tennessee and Oregon, it’s hard to see anyone beating them.
The Vols’ 2024 season ended on a sour note because of that blowout loss to Ohio State.
And that’s unfortunate for Tennessee’s players, coaches, players’ families, and fans. The Vols deserved a better ending to the season. Simply put, they were robbed by college football.
If Tennessee had been the No. 7 seed in the playoff like they should’ve been, the Vols would’ve hosted SMU in the first round. From there (assuming Tennessee would’ve beat SMU), the Vols would’ve played a wounded Georgia team (no Carson Beck for the Bulldogs) in the quarterfinals.
No one knows if Tennessee would’ve won a home game against SMU or how they would’ve fared in a rematch against Georgia.
But hosting a playoff game in Neyland Stadium and playing a Georgia team that was starting a backup quarterback would’ve undoubtedly been a better scenario than playing against a motivated and ridiculously talented Ohio State squad that currently looks unbeatable.
And look, I’m not suggesting that Tennessee could’ve ended the season as the last team standing in this scenario. Even if the Vols beat SMU and Georgia, they probably weren’t getting past Ohio State (at least not this version of the Buckeyes). However, if Tennessee ends the season with an 11-3 record with a win in the first round against SMU, or with a 12-3 record with wins against SMU and Georgia before losing in the semifinals, the season is viewed a lot differently by fans, media, and recruits.
There’s a decent chance the flawed seeding process is fixed before next year’s playoff. And maybe that change will benefit the Vols next winter. But it won’t change that Tennessee was robbed of the ending that the Vols’ 2024 season deserved.
Tennessee has lost one game in Neyland Stadium (Georgia in 2023) over the last three seasons. Regardless of the outcome of the season, Neyland deserved to host a playoff game last month.
The Vols’ 2024 season is a reminder that not all 10-3 seasons are created equal. This was a special year for the Vols. The program can’t help it got shafted by an asinine seeding process. Anyone suggesting otherwise is forgetting what being a fan of college football is all about. Championships, which are incredibly difficult to come by in this sport, have never completely defined success in college football. Success is defined in large part by beating your rivals and the experience that’s created in the stadium for 7-8 home games each fall. That shouldn’t change just because there’s a 12-team playoff. If that’s the only way you can end the season happy as a fan, then you’re going to have a miserable experience most years no ma
tter who you root for in this sport.
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